So is there any sign or semblance of hope to be had today? Very little, I would say. President Obama and Secretary Clinton are behaving according to the basic nobility of their character, adhering to the principles and conventions of a democratic order that died on November 8th. We may do CPR on the corpse of American democracy for some time yet, and perhaps we may yet resuscitate it back to some form of continued life though it will never, ever be what is was before. But that thin reed of possibility is no excuse for blinding ourselves to what has happened: Trump is scum, and the people who voted for him are scum, or in the very best case, immoral fools.

The damage that they have done is beyond reckoning. I cannot begin to name it today. The simplest way to describe it is that our civilization has attempted suicide. The United States will continue to exist, just as Athens and Rome still exist, as physical places on the map, long after they ceased to be a dynamic force in human affairs. But America as an idea lies on its deathbed today. The pretense of normality will not last.